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Do you consider Offset Clipping cheating?


yorshee

Do you think it's cheating?  

239 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you think it's cheating?

    • Yes, it can be manipulated to unrealistic levels that I don't like.
      34
    • No, there's nothing wrong with having the freedom to make my crafts how I want them to be!
      132
    • It depends (Please explain!)
      73


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People, you can play however you want, but claiming that extreme clipping has no impact on a craft´s performance is a stretch at best. Sure, mass and drag may be the same, but the form&shape matters, too! Center of mass/lift, for example? landers tipping over on touch down? that kind of stuff. Extreme clipping is not merely compensating for freedoms real life agencies have, but we dont, it potentially goes way further than this - unless you ever heard of NASA using hyperdimensional fuel tanks that can acutally hold greater volumes (disregarding pressure for now) of fuel than the tank takes up.

Some people are right that it cannot be cheating the way it and KSP are set up. But that´s just arguing semantics. The OP obviously meant to ask wether you consider it an ´exploit´ or ´gamey´. And i dont think there can be a doubt about it, that it can be used in such a fashion. It just depends on how far you go with it. Not that i am gonna judge you anyways (so long as you dont post boasty utube-vids up with such creations, without explicity disclaiming the massive clipping).

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If it is being done to throw hundreds (I mean that literally) of batteries in a tiny compartment then yes. I use it only to make the vehicles more streamlined, the the clipping never goes to extreme levels. For example, I got a "build a base" contract. The top was a cupola and it's support "spine" was a fuel tank. There were 3 mk2 passenger modules, clipped just enough so they fit together, making it look like they were one room.

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IMHO clipping is "good" only if you're trying to make something which can be realistic. So, if you are clipping more wings only to make a smoother shape, or make parts make better contact ( like almost anything attached to the MK1 pod ) it's ok.

Putting multiple fuel tanks in the same space or engines inside other engines... well it's cheating according to me

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OP here - I know I'm not a mod or anything but I'm seeing a lot of tension between people in this thread. Please don't start arguing with one another if you have different opinions, it would be disappointing to see this thread get locked. :(

I'm sure this subject has been brought up before, but I don't check the forums every day, and it's against the rules to bump a thread that's too old, so you must make a new thread.

I made this thread just to see what people thought on the matter. I only use offset clipping to make things more streamlined and aesthetically pleasing. I also sometimes clip fuel tanks into each other, but never all the way, and I take fuel out to compensate. Unless I'm just messing about on Sandbox mode, then I just do whatever. :P

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The common opinion on the forum seems to be that you can't cheat in singleplayer games. (so no cheating in solitaire?)*

A better question would maybe be to ask other people if they personally use it or have made some rules for themselves to limit it.

I do use it, but I try to avoid clipping fuel tanks into each other, or creating floating parts.

I would like some kind of restrictions on part clipping, but it doesn't ruin the game that there are none.

Why would I like restrictions when I can enforce them myself?

:I find that I sometimes spen too much time thinking if something clips too much for me, having the game give me a standard would mske construction easier.

The people who want to clip without limits could just disable it in the "cheat" menu like before.

*I think that by definition you can cheat in games, even singleplayer ones, but there is nothing wrong with cheating in singleplayer.

1. Cheating is breaking rules.

2. Games have rules, if they don't they are not games. (they are... toys?)

I don't think clipping is cheating, it's a part of the game.

(but I think it almost always looks very ugly)

Edited by Joonatan1998
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The common opinion on the forum seems to be that you can't cheat in singleplayer games. (so no cheating in solitaire?)*

Games have rules, if they don't they are not games. (they are... toys?)

I used to, if I came to an impasse in Solitaire, switch from 3 cards at a time to 1 at a time. It didn't allow me to win every game, but it allowed me to keep playing an otherwise interesting (for Solitaire) game instead of scooping and redealing. I don't consider that cheating either. It's not like I was in a Solitaire contest or anything.

I actually consider KSP to be a very structured toy. Even Career mode is just a toy with a ramping-up mechanism.

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Well... I dont like clipping tanks, engines, capsules etc., but i find nothing wrong in filling empty space like in decouplers, adapters, large ASAS ring etc.

But honestly it is just a personal opinion. KSP allows to clip parts, so its part of the game. Playing a game the way you like is no cheating.

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I used to, if I came to an impasse in Solitaire, switch from 3 cards at a time to 1 at a time. It didn't allow me to win every game, but it allowed me to keep playing an otherwise interesting (for Solitaire) game instead of scooping and redealing. I don't consider that cheating either. It's not like I was in a Solitaire contest or anything.

I actually consider KSP to be a very structured toy. Even Career mode is just a toy with a ramping-up mechanism.

In the end it depends on the definition of "cheating"

Cheating definitely is a term that has been used with single player games for a long time. (the reason why the button in debug menu is "cheats" and there are "cheat codes" in some games...)

But in singleplayer one can always view "cheating" as creating a new ruleset to play with.

Some could call not playing with the default rules cheating.

I agree that KSP can be seen as a toy, which would mean that no cheating is possible.

Edited by Joonatan1998
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No it is not cheating... this is a single player game, so who do you "cheat"? I don't use it, but I have seen some very interesting crafts which uses it a lot for design purposes, not for creating more space then it should be.,.

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I use the offset tool to move fuel tanks up in to the structural girders that form the backbone of my satellites (slightly shorter, maintains the square cross section). I move probe cores, batteries and the like in to otherwise empty nosecones and adaptors, within reason. I use it to align parts that otherwise look weird - I don't like the way OX-STAT panels, thermometers and the like stand out from their parts so I clip them in a bit. Or to close gaps between parts - the Mk-1 pod still has that weird gap below it sometimes, so I'll offset the part beneath up a bit to fit snug for example. Anything else feels too unrealistic.

And the can't cheat in single-player thing is utter garbage. Just because you're only cheating yourself doesn't make it any less valid.

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How can it be considered cheating if there is no competition involved? Each player is playing for himself, and I would suggest that you can't cheat yourself. Sure, if you are not comfortable with certain aspects of the game, there is nothing to say that you have to use or incorporate that aspect. To that end, some players may do things in their gameplay that you wouldn't be comfortable doing in yours but to call it cheating is a bit disingenuous.

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Eh, cheating yourself is rather hard in videogames. Afaik the aerodynamics calculation, which is probably the only game system that actually cares about form factor, doesn't actually detect clipped parts.

Personally I don't do 'unrealistic' clipping, because a spacecraft's look is often 90% result of it's purpose. Just look at that abomination of a Space Shuttle Launch System, and how people love that thing. The only exception are small things, e.g. moving decouplers to minimize the gap between rocket tanks, or lowering the sepratron.

Edited by Temeter
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When making craft I tend to self-limit to reasonable clipping - for example, the inside of the inline battery banks look as though they could conceivable be hollow, so I see no problem with shoving a smaller RCS tank or whatnot in that space. Same goes with fitting surface scanners or antennas further into an octagonal strut structure so as to not collide with eg. landing legs, or clipping an LV-909 slightly into a fuel tank for adjusting ground clearance.

As far as fitting five fuel tanks in the space of one, I just don't do it.

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When making craft I tend to self-limit to reasonable clipping - for example, the inside of the inline battery banks look as though they could conceivable be hollow, so I see no problem with shoving a smaller RCS tank or whatnot in that space. Same goes with fitting surface scanners or antennas further into an octagonal strut structure so as to not collide with eg. landing legs, or clipping an LV-909 slightly into a fuel tank for adjusting ground clearance.

As far as fitting five fuel tanks in the space of one, I just don't do it.

same with me, i use it mainly in a reasonable way to work around certain parts not in the game, for example clipping cubic struts into another part or into each other, scince there is not much variety in cubic struts,

or to fit the basic antennas more into probe cores, because it looks somewhat better to me. i don't clip fuel, engines, wings, servicebay load

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Hi all

I voted it depends... (I only use Stockbugfixmodules, Kerbal Jointreinforcement and Engineer redux)

Me personally i try to use the parts as they come, thats my challenge in building launchers, aircrafts and landers.

Minor clipping meaning touching surfaces or minor entering... i try not do so.

Its a matter of taste.

Extreme Clipping (Engines and wings...), it is cheating to me.

Its just a game.

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I try to maintain volumes - if I inset a LV-N into a tank, I try to remove the equivalent fuel. I have to say, though, that the service bays mean a lot less clipping on my designs, as I can tuck batteries, probe cores, small monopropellent tanks, and the like in them.

Edited by DancesWithSquirrels
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I don't think it is cheating.

I always think it is better to have the freedom to clip than not having it at all.

And to be honest, I almost never see people clipping fuel tanks to a degree I would call cheating.

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The poll questions are biased.

This poll is obviously worded to confirm his already held belief that unlimited part clipping should not be looked at as an exploit/cheating/whatever.

What if I want to answer "Yes", without a "it depends" but not for the reason that the poll crudely stick to a "yes" answer.

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Depends on how you do it. I'm fine with it if its just making things fit a little better or connect at angles the came normally wouldn't allow, ie problems that real rockets don't have because parts can be made any shape and they have more than one kind of connector.

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like most people here: if it's just for aesthetics or to make stuff align better or things like that: go nuts!

If clipping is used to significantly augment the crafts capabilities in ways that would not be possible without clipping: still go nuts, it's your game! (but I wouldn't do it personally because I so consider it a bit too game-y).

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Absolutely not - one of teh things I love about KSP is that each of us is free to play it the way we prefer. SQUAD haven;t forced us all to have to play Career Mode, nor been precious about their game to the point of making modding deliberately difficult. Quite the opposite - they've retained Science mode and Sandbox, and have positively encouraged modding.

So if clipping is something you want to do for some reason - go to it!

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